


Don't that Mean...?

by UnchartedCloud



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-27
Updated: 2015-09-22
Packaged: 2018-04-06 11:31:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4220076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnchartedCloud/pseuds/UnchartedCloud
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peggy desperately needs some help learning Italian, and everyone’s favorite lesbian thespian is standing by to assist.</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>After Peggy returns from her trip to Italy, a worrisome encounter outside the L&L has Angie looking to learn how to defend herself. Everyone's favorite bi-spy is standing by to assist!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Peggy’s eyebrows knit together as she pores over the phrase book you’ve pushed under her nose.

“You know, English, print don’t respond well to intimidation.”

She shoots you a Look from the corner of her eye and you can’t help the grin that answers it. You couldn’t resist, really; she just looked so _fierce,_ like she was expecting the Italian to become intelligible under the sheer weight of her will. But now she sighs, straightens up some, and says,

“ _Dov’è il bagno?_ ”

Or tries to, anyway. You, in turn, try not to laugh, and end up letting a snort out instead. She groans in frustration and rolls her eyes heavenward.

The automat is practically empty at this time of night. Your new roommate has made a habit of coming by when she can - whenever her mysterious job at the not-phone-company doesn’t keep her out until all ungodly hours - for a cup of tea before you both walk home. This has long since become a pretense for the two of you to sit in one of the deserted booths and while away the last hour of your late shift. Occasionally a clatter from the office or the kitchen reminds you you’re not alone, or a customer stumbles in from the cold. But mostly it’s just you and Peggy.

“For the love of– what have I forgotten now?”

“The e, English. You forgot the e.”

“Oh, the silly accent.” She frowns at the phrase book as though it has insulted her, and your grin only grows. It’s obvious that she isn’t used to struggling with languages, and you’re not used to seeing Peggy have difficulty with _anything_. Most days she’s infallible, unstoppable. There’s something incredibly endearing in her frustration.

“It’s an _eh_ sound, remember? _Dov-eh._ ”

“ _Dov-eh?_ ”

“You’ve gotta loosen up that mouth of yours, Pegs. Italian is supposed to _flow,_ and your syllables are just so…” You wave your hand in front of you as you try to settle on the right word. “ _Stiff._ ”

“Of course they are. I’m English, in case you’ve forgotten.” Irritation pours out of her words but none of it is aimed at you despite your chuckle. Still she frowns at the phrase book, then picks it up. After a moment more of glaring, she attempts, “ _Me dispiace, ma–_ ”

“ _Che._ C-e is a _ch_ sound, remember?”

“Oh, sod the c-e!” Peggy closes the book and sets it flat on the table with a sharp _snap!_ You’re pretty certain you’ve seen your ten year old cousin Mario deal with math homework with more patience.

“I don’t see why they can’t just send D’Angelo on this wild goose chase. He, at least, is Italian,” she grumbles.

“He was probably born in Queens and knows just enough Italian to assure his nonna that yes, he _will_ be marrying that girl soon.” You say, and when the frustration doesn’t lift from her face, you sigh and roll your eyes. “C’mon, Peg, let’s try something else.” 

You turn in your seat so that you’re facing her directly, your back to the entrance of the booth. You take her hands - surprisingly still cold from the night air, and you realize her tea has literally not been touched since you set it down in front of her - and she looks up at you in surprise and bewilderment. She’s tense, at first, as tense as her brow had been when she was still looking at the book. Then her forehead smooths out and, though she still looks uncertain, her fingers relax against your palms.

“ _Mi chiamo Peggy._ ”

You can see the moment understanding dawns in her eyes, and she repeats, “ _Mi chiamo Peggy._ ”

“ _Io sono inglese._ ”

“ _Io sono inglese._ ”

You shake your head and emphasize _ee-oh_ when you speak again. Part of you wonders if Peggy speaks Spanish, the way _io_ always has a y in her voice. “ _Io sono inglese._ ”

“ _Io sono inglese._ ”

You only realize you’re grinning because she answers it with one of her own. “ _Vorrei una torta._ ”

The translation of this one isn’t clear, and Peggy’s brows knit again ever so slightly. “What does that mean?” You give her a Look and, with a slight air of suspicion, she repeats, “ _Vorrei una torta._ ” You laugh.

“Congrats, English. You just ordered a cake!”

The phrases get sillier from there. Most of them are your prompting, but as the two of you get giddier Peggy makes some requests of her own. _Yes, I do like the yellow dress. Your dog loves to dance. May I see that stapler?_

You stop telling her what the phrases mean, eventually, because it’s _hilarious_ to you that they’re coming out of her mouth - and she, apparently taken by your laughter, complies without hesitation.

After you get her to say the three worst combination of swears you know, you have to let go of one of her hands to wipe the tears from your eye. You try not to smudge your makeup as you laugh out a breathless, “ _Oh, ti amo,_ Peg - _dove sei stato tutta la mia vita?_ ”

In the midst of your laughter, you become very aware very quickly that her other hand - the one still resting in yours - stiffens slightly. Only after that…and only after seeing the look on her face do you realize what you’ve just said. Every part of you _wills_ that heat in your face back down your neck, but no audition, no monologue, no imagined moment in your bathroom mirror has _ever_ prepared you for the look she’s giving you right now. Your heart may very well stop in your chest, you think - because she looks like she knows. You know the words meant nothing to her, just a jumble of sounds that came rolling out of your mouth, but the way her hand stiffened, the way she now takes it back from yours, the way her eyes look from your still half-raised hand to settle on your face, you can’t help but feel she knows what you said. And now you fear your blush confirms it.

“Angie…” she says slowly, and your mouth has gone completely dry. You realize she’s going to make you say it anyway. “What did that mean?”

“Wh-what, just now?” Your voice _will be normal,_ you will _make it be normal_ \- and then you practically squeak out, “Well, you know _vita_ is–”

The _crash_ of shattered glass rends the air and you both jump about a mile high. Twisting around towards the kitchen, you see movement behind the divide and a swear follows the crash and you have never been _more thankful_ for klutzy chefs.

“I should probably go help!” you say, and jump up and out of the booth before Peggy can say or do anything, and though you know you catch her trying to get words out as you bolt, you don’t turn back around.

You don’t think you’ll be speaking Italian again for a while.


	2. Stupid Cupid, Stop Picking on Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Peggy returns from her trip to Italy, a worrisome encounter outside the L&L has Angie looking to learn how to defend herself. Everyone's favorite bi-spy is standing by to assist!

You're relieved when Peggy finally comes back. 

For a whole thirteen days you'd had the titanic Stark mansion to yourself, and for thirteen days you had to put up with long work shifts without so much as a hope for a break in the tedium. You always miss the slight, clever quirk in your housemate's lips on the days she's working, her sometimes cheeky, sometimes frustrated, but always lovely voice. But this was something else entirely. She's almost _never_ gone this long.   
  
Not that having a mansion to yourself doesn't have its perks. For three straight days you'd kicked your shoes off the second you stepped through the door, cranked Howard's fancy smancy radio as loud as it would go, and danced, sang, and slid across the hardwood halls in your stockinged feet. You let the dishes pile up in the sink for days, and put as much sugar and milk in your coffee and tea as you pleased (something that often caused mild offense to Peggy's 'finer' English sensibilities); you cooked the foods that rarely made it to your shared dinner table because Peggy either wasn't a fan or didn't know how to make them. So yeah, there's definitely something freeing about having the run of the place.   
  
But before long, the absence of Peggy's presence in the mansion became more than palpable. The music seemed too loud in the empty rooms, so you didn't turn the radio up as high. Whenever you turned it off, you half expected to hear the faint, dull _thwumpthwump_ of her punching bag sounding from the formal dining room - and every time you woke early for a shift, you were sorely disappointed when you turned the kitchen corner and didn't see her sitting at the breakfast nook, cup of coffee on her left and a newspaper spread out before her. And who the heck were you supposed to complain to about the idiot customers that hassled you that day? Mr. Whiskers still lived with Mama, and talking to your reflection turned out to be creepier when the words weren't scripted.   
  
So yeah. You're glad when she finally comes home.  
  
You aren't home when she arrives, and she hadn't sent word ahead of herself. So when you walk in you shuck your shoes on the foyer rug and shrug out of your rain coat. That drops to the ground along with your bag, and you're pulling the pins that secure your hat to your curls on your way to the kitchen when you hear it.   
  
_Thwump. Thwumpthwump-thwump. Thwump._  
  
Your heart jumps in your chest - but whether it's from fear of not being alone or the thrilling _hope_ of it is anyone's guess.  
  
Sure enough, there's a mass of dark curls in front of the punching bag when you turn the corner into the formal dining room. Peggy has them semi-tamed into a band at the base of her neck, and they swing from side to side as she throws blow after blow at the heavy bag, which shudders under their force. The shirt she wears doesn't have sleeves - an artifact from her time in the service, you think, though it certainly looks newer than that - and you find yourself caught up watching the lean muscles move in her shoulders, a strength often hidden from the world when in her more formal clothes. So when she becomes aware of your presence, it isn't because you've said anything - or, you know, greeted her like a normal human being. It's because she can feel your eyes on her.   
  
You, in turn, feel your face color as _she_ turns, catching the gently swinging bag as she does so, and you scramble for words, for any excuse as to why you'd just been caught staring. But if Peggy notices your embarrassment - or indeed, that you'd been staring at all - it doesn't show in her warm smile.   
  
" _Buonasera,_ Angela," she says, her eyes sparkling. " _Come stai?_ "  
  
"English!" You laugh, and rush forward to envelop her in a bear of a hug. You both stumble a bit - you because you've given her your weight, she because she's surprised by it - and though she laughs through the embrace she seems a bit reluctant to return it.   
  
"Angie - careful, I'm a bit--"  
  
And yeah, she _is_ a little warm and a little sticky from her workout, but you hardly care and tell her as much. When you bounce your weight back onto your own heels your hands settle on her upper arms and you smile up into her face.  
  
"Look at _you,_ " you hum, and lift a hand to pinch her chin between your thumb and fingers, turning her face first one way and then the other. She’s flushed - from the exercise, you think - and an embarrassed smile starts to tug at her lips as her eyes avoid yours. “You’ve got quite a tan there, Pegs, almost like a real Italian. I hope you know you’ll have to tell me everything.”

“ _Everything?_ ” she asks, and your eyes turn from her cheeks to see that hers have finally settled on you, one brow raised. You raise yours right back.

“If you think you’ve spent two weeks--”

“Thirteen days, actually--”

“ _In Italy_ without me, and expect me to let you get away with some boring family-dinner-table recounting, the sun must’ve gotten to more than your skin. I want to know where you went, what you saw, what you ate, what wine you had, where--”  
  
" _Tutto in tempo utile,_ " she soothes, her voice underwritten by a laugh. Her hands have moved to close warmly over your wrists, and you let yours slide from her arms and into them instead.   
  
With a proud - and perhaps slightly cocky - tilt to your lips you say, "You've gotten pretty good at that." Her mouth quirks in response.   
  
"Oh don't worry, I'll run out of phrases before long. Perhaps we ought to move upstairs before that happens, though, so you can tell me all the wonderful things that I missed."  
  
"It's New York," you say sardonically, giving her a meaningful look before you turn to head back out into the hall. " _Wonderful_ is making more than a fifty cent tip."  
  
You spend the evening trading stories of the last two weeks over lukewarm leftovers and a few glasses of wine, you leaning against the breakfast nook in your stockinged feet and automat uniform, she sitting in one of the high chairs with her boots on one rung. Turns out you missed this more than you thought.   
  
But that's to be expected, isn't it? You've never been a solitary creature.   
  


* * *

 

Your usual routine sets in quickly after that. Peggy inquires after your schedule for the week, and she drops by for a late lunch during your day shifts and sits at the service bar so you can chat in between tending to customers; on the later shifts she comes, takes a seat in one of the booths, and orders some tea and, sometimes, a snack or two. You find that you prefer these later visits, as the automat is quiet and devoid of impatient customers. Sometimes, you can snatch a whole fifteen minutes to yourselves, your heads tucked together over the table as you swap gossip about your coworkers.

On one such night, the two of you step outside to find that a warm summer rain has moved in over the city. It’s not unpleasant; there’s no wind, and the rain is a light drizzle that’s easily warded off by the umbrella Peggy carried with her that day, so you set off on your regular route home.

You’re in the middle of a story about the previous weekend, when you and an old friend from the Griffith encountered a particularly persistent pair of gentleman at a dance hall in midtown, when you notice that Peggy has grown rather still at your side. She hasn’t stopped moving but there’s something in the set of her shoulders that makes you look up...and sure enough, she’s distracted. Her eyes linger over your shoulder and across the street, her brows pulled together.

“English?” you tease, nudging the arm that carries the umbrella. “English, come in, English. Everything alright?”

“Just fine,” she says, but her eyes narrow slightly and don’t deviate from their previous target. “Only - Angie, do you know that gentleman?”

You turn to follow her gaze...and hope that you manage to keep a straight face even as you feel the color drain from it. It’s too far and too dark to see clearly, but you’re fairly certain you recognize the hat.

“Maybe...we should call that cab after all,” you say, as casually as you can, and loop your arm through Peggy’s so you can tug her to the curb. You put your arm up for the first taxi that comes by.

She tries to ask you but you laugh it away, saying that there are all kinds of creeps in the city at this time of night. You don’t tell her that the same man - or at least, one with the same hat - has appeared outside the automat three times over the last thirteen days. Maybe more, if the first time you spotted him wasn’t the first time he’d been there. There were any number of reasons for someone to be standing across the street from the automat at night, the bus stop for one, but...you’d lived in this city all your life, and you’d learned to trust your instincts. When the hair on the back of your neck went up that first time, you started taking the taxi home.

Now, you’re just glad to feel Peggy’s presence beside you. You still aren’t certain what it is she does for a living, but she always seemed the type who could handle herself - an appearance that was only confirmed the day you found her on the ledge outside your window. If anyone could protect you from whatever that shadow wanted, it’s her.

 

* * *

 

And yet, she couldn’t be there _all_ the time.

You haven’t seen the man again since that night, but the more you think about him the more you feel like it might be worthwhile to learn to defend yourself. After all, Peggy would likely travel - and if it’s her presence that scared the guy off, as you feel might be the case, there’s some chance he might show up again when she does. Maybe you’re just being paranoid, but...it isn’t like you’ll have to go far.

When you’ve finally made your decision, you wait until one of the days when you have an early shift and head back to the mansion before Peggy gets out of work. You change into the outfit you’d purchased the day before from a surplus store, and spend the next fifteen minutes turning one way and then the other in the mirror. You’ve never worn slacks before - well, aside from that one pajama set - and you’re unused to seeing your shoulders quite so bare...but you like it. It feels daring - powerful, even. You wonder if this is how Peggy feels when she dresses for practice, like she could stare down the world and have the entirety of it cower beneath her gaze. You think you might need to wear slacks to your next audition. 

When you hear Peggy call from the foyer to announce that she’s arrived home you finally set about putting your hair back. She calls again when you hear her heels on the stairs - she must not have heard your response - and you answer her through your closed door with some mundane excuse even though you feel anything but. You check your reflection again once you think you’ve successfully mimicked her ponytail in your shorter hair, turning your head one way and then the other to check for stray curls. Only when you’ve gotten your fill of your new outfit do you slip downstairs to the formal dining room. 

You know her schedule as well as she knows yours, and for once she's not late; you have just enough time to make it down the stairs and arrange yourself ever-so-casually on a windowsill to wait before she herself arrives. Peggy stops the second her eyes land on you and you think you might have actually stunned _the_ Peggy Carter - whatever the _the_ might entail - into silence. You swallow against the dryness in your mouth and steady yourself against the heart racing in your chest. You’ve never done anything quite like this before. 

“Hey English,” you say, easy and calm as you please. You flash her a smile and perk an eyebrow, as though silently remarking on her flabbergasted expression. “I thought you might need a sparring partner.”

She blinks rapidly and comes back to herself enough to manage a, “...sorry?” You hop down from your perch.

“I was kinda thinkin’.” You approach her, forcing your hands to remain comfortably at your side despite the overwhelming impulse to twist your fingers together. Her eyes take you in with an expression that’s not at all unfriendly, but you’ve started to wonder if her surprise was more of the ‘you want to do _what_ , exactly?’ variety than the simple stunned silence sort that had amused you only seconds ago. “After that run-in with that creep, it might not be a bad idea to learn how to defend myself. What with living in the city and me being soon to be famous…” You try a cheeky little smile as you stop in front of her, but she doesn’t see it. Her eyes are focused on your bare shoulder. The heat in the room seems to have drawn a flush to her face, and you think that maybe you should’ve taken a second to open the window before she arrived.

“I…” she starts, and she only sounds distracted for a moment more. Then she blinks again, and her eyes have returned to their usual calm intelligence when they focus on yours. “Yes, of course. I can imagine knowing how to take care of oneself can be quite a relief in this day and age.” She hesitates a moment, and your heart leaps hopefully as her eyes flick downwards and then back up. “...you want me to teach you?”

“I was actually hoping Mr. Fancy knew a thing or two,” you tease, and the sudden bark of laughter this draws from her surprises you somewhat. You’d meant it to be a joke, of course, but she found it to be a lot funnier than you’d anticipated; her mirth draws a fond smile to your lips, and you reach forward to nudge her upper arm. How little the muscle gives beneath her skin surprises some part of you, but you say, “ _Yes_ , I want you to teach me. Who better to learn from than the woman who defends me against rude customers?”

As her laughter fades her expression becomes a demure thing, and she mutters something about how little a deal that was. But you can tell, from the faint tilt of her lips, that she’s pleased. You reach out and nudge her arm again. “So, whadd’ya say, Drill Sergeant? Care to put this girl through bootcamp?”

There’s still amusement in her face when she slowly shakes her head. “It won’t be easy,” she warns, but her voice is so light you just raise your eyebrow. “I’ll expect regular practice time, and I’m not a very forgiving teacher." 

“Baaah,” you scoff, rolling your eyes. She could be so _serious_ sometimes. “How bad could it be?”

 

* * *

 

...kind of bad, it turns out.

Not horrible, of course - Peggy made it abundantly clear that you were more than welcome to call it quits if it ever got to be too much. It didn’t, though. The first few lessons were tough, and you would wake the morning after with aching limbs and a few new bruises that hadn’t been there the morning before. But there was something satisfying in the ache, something rewarding in the strain - and, of course, there was the fact that it was an excuse to spend more time with her. There was something so enjoyable about that that made even her often frustrating demand for perfection well worth it.

The months of summer crawled on, the heat of July and August setting into the brick and pavement of the city as you settled into your new routine. Your body began to change; you noticed it in everything from the new tone of muscle in your reflection to the new ease with which you lifted a full tray at the diner. There was even a confidence to your stance that hadn’t been there before, and suddenly, you were getting callbacks more often than not.

Peggy was away when Independence Day rolled around, but you received a phone call from her office that evening that left you with just enough time to meet her at a swanky rooftop bar (one that, you think, required a bit of finagling from the illustrious Mr. Stark to gain admittance to) to watch the fireworks. In August, you managed to drag her away from her desk long enough to attend the annual Martinelli picnic, and laughed yourself hoarse watching her cope with the swarm of aunts, uncles, siblings, and little cousins that crashed about the park near your family home (she’d seemed particularly distressed by the interrogation that your mother gave her, despite the fact that the woman in question was a good four inches shorter than Peggy. Not that you could blame her, really; Mama had been known to drive off a number of your sisters’ boyfriends with the intensity of her questioning, and they had all been much larger than Peggy). And of course you had your meetings over lunch or tea and your weekends in the city, one of which allowed you to actually witness Manhattanhenge for the first time in your life - and all the while you trained, and all the while you got stronger.

Summer’s apex has, by now, come and gone. The days are slowly getting shorter, though you know that true autumn is still several weeks off; the nights, though longer, are still sultry and warm. Sweat beads down the back of your neck and along the furrow of your spine as you bounce around the boxing ring set up on the far side of the formal dining room. The ring is the newest - and perhaps strangest - addition to the various training equipment scattered around the room, set up, you suspect, after some off-hand comment Peggy made to Jarvis or Howard. Certainly she hadn’t seemed like she’d expected it to be there when the two of you first discovered its existence.

Sometimes you wonder what the neighbors would have to say if ever they saw what’d become of the Stark mansion’s grand entertainment venue. 

As it is, you’re focused on the padded targets Peggy wears on her hands. She offers them to you quickly, one after the other, sometimes several times in a row, always attempting to catch you off-guard. You meet and bounce away, meet and bounce away, and every time you’re satisfied by how much further you’re able to drive her arm away when your blows connect. When you’d first started, she’d hardly flinched.

“Come on then, Angie,” she said, and though her voice is light her face is the picture of focus. She offers you the right target, then the left, then right again twice before she slides to the side and repeats the pattern. “Move those feet! You’re faster than this!”

Your eyebrow pops a challenge as you lock your jaw. Faster than this, huh?

You speed up alright, your blows coming so fast now that Peggy’s struggling to keep the targets moving. Suddenly you’re on the offensive, no longer waiting for her hands to offer you targets but forcing her to react to you instead. She’s surprised, caught off-guard for a few precious seconds, and you’re able to force her to backpedal straight into the roped corner of the ring.

“Alright, alright, I surrender!” she says after her back has hit the post, hiding behind her arms. The face she wears is a mixture of befuddled shock and bemused annoyance, and you close your taped hands around the ropes on either side of her to support yoursel as you hang your head and dissolve into giggles. You can almost feel her roll her eyes. “Goodness, Angie, I didn’t mean for you to--”

“ _You should see your face!_ ” you laugh, and lift your hand to snort into the back of your wrist. It’s indelicate and a bit crass, but it’s enough to get Peggy laughing along with you. You laugh until your stomach aches, until you’re leaning so far forward that your forehead is sitting on her shoulder; you laugh until you’re worn out.

When finally the mirth subsides you set your hand on its rope again and lift your head to look at her. Her face is pink, her lips dark and ruddy from laughing so hard, and sweat still shines at her hairline and on her temples...but most of all, her face is very, _very_ close to yours.

You hadn’t given the proximity a single thought before, but now it’s enough to make you hold your breath.

Both of your smiles fade then and you simply look at each other, unmoving, as though the air - no, as though _time itself_ has stilled around you. You see her eyes, still the softest brown you’ve ever seen, flick down in that way they’ve done so often lately. For the first time, you realize she might’ve been looking at your lips.

Her own part, and she looks like she’s about to speak, but hesitates. Then, “ _Dove sei stato tutta la mia vita._ ” She sounds as breathless as you feel, and suddenly you’re in the automat again, her hands warm in yours. You gulp. “It means, ‘Where have you been all my life?’”

You’re an actress, but you don’t trust yourself to speak. So all you do is nod.

Her shoulders shift, and for a moment you think she means to touch you; only now do you notice the way her hands, now free of the targets, grip the second tier of ropes beneath white knuckles. As though she’s holding something back. Slowly one detaches itself and it looks like, you think...is she shaking?

“And _ti amo_ …” she says slowly, and she’s reaching out, lifting her hand as though to--

You rip yourself away, jumping back from her before you can discover her intentions. Your heart is in your mouth and your face is so warm that you think it might set itself aflame. “Geeze, it is _hot in here_ ,” you say, unable to look at her. Staring somewhere off to the side you pretend to mop your face with the back of your hand and blow a decidedly theatrical sigh. “I think that’s enough for me tonight, English - long shift in the morning and all. Same time tomorrow?”

Before she can so much as move you’re fleeing between the ropes, across the room, and up the stairs. What you need is a shower. A cold, _cold_ shower.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is taken from Connie Francis' song by the same title. Given that the song wasn't released until the late 1950's it's quite anachronistic but...well, sue me. This chapter was also published on my tumblr, unchartedcloud.tumblr.com, where I spend far too much of my time reblogging things about my favorite lady lovers. Stop by if you're feeling bored!
> 
> Posted in celebration of bisexuality awareness week 2015.

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally posted on my Tumblr (also UnchartedCloud) on May 16, 2015, and was based on a headcanon by Tumblr user chaolsqueen. Feel free to drop by if you're bored!


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